SOCIAL MEDIA unlocked in lockdown

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ocial media, virtual games, online watching, internet browsing, etc. have always doubted upon the loneliness inside us. They have always helped us to regain back the essence of that time when the mind has no chance to escape from the scope of their techno world. The recent days at our houses have passed by the same speed with which the normal days were passing. But the huge alter is that we are not feeling the presence of the recent days because of the tech know-how we have.

In these days of the pandemic, the society is not stepping out of the houses to take care of themselves, as well as others and, are probably feeling trapped in their own places. As a result, people are becoming obsessed with social media, virtual games, online watching, and many more which are familiar with the technology. Let’s see what the people were attracted to in this lockdown - towards productivity or towards destroying creativity.

· As compared to the week before lockdown, 75% of the people were spending more time on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

· During the first week of lockdown, Indians spent more than 4 hours in Social Media. Before lockdown, social media usage was on an average of 150 minutes per day. But in the initial stage of lockdown, it jumped to 280 minutes per day, approximately an increase of 87%.

· Twitter, the network with the strongest growth in the first quarter of 2020 has attained a growth of 14% more than in the last quarter of 2019. Zoom, the new name of video conferencing has had up to 200 million active users on certain days, 20 times more than those before the pandemic.

· TikTok, a Chinese short video sharing app has had an exceptional run from its starting in India. With over 800 million users in India, its average session time rose from 39.5 minutes to 56.9 minutes. The number of times users open TikTok also skyrocketed to 53%. Instagram goes no less, its number of times of opening app got a thrust to 59%.

· Live-video streaming apps have achieved big growth during the starting of 2020. The time spent on Live.me grew 315% which is a very big achievement. On the other hand, Bigo rose 66%. Both of these have around 2 million users each. All of this happened in just a small duration of 2 months i.e. February to March 2020.

· The internet browsing also witnessed a spike of 72% in the first week of lockdown. Nearly half of internet users, around 47% reported spending more time on social media. Internet users are also moving towards online music for avoiding boredom. Records saying, 39% of the 16-64 years old increasingly turning to online music services.

· The weekly number of game downloads to mobiles has boomed by 30% in March as compared to the average of the fourth quarter of 2019.

Now moving back to the top, the question there is still in a quest to find an answer. Whether the above-given report is agreeing to the fact of productivity or with the disgrace of destroying creativity. A single person cannot decipher the stats and the message that they are conveying. So as being the presenter, I would like the readers to give a thought to where we are going, and don’t forget that the Comment Section is always open for you….

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